Beginning in the 1890's, Caroline “Carrie” M. Edwards (later known as Carrie Williams after marrying her husband Abraham Williams) was a schoolteacher at the Coketon Colored School, found at the head of the Blackwater Canyon in West Virginia. She taught the children of African American coal and coke workers in the area. In 1898, the Tucker County School Board reduced the school term for black students to five months to save money, while keeping the full eight month term for white students. Williams and her lawyer J.R. Clifford (1848-1933), West Virginia’s first black attorney, won equal treatment in West Virginia’s Supreme Court for black students and equal pay for black teachers all across the State of West Virginia.